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Until 2016, the agrarian residents of east Kenya’s Kitui county had never encountered a water quality monitor like Mary Musenya. Wearing a bright blue company jersey and furnished with sample bottles and plastic trays, the young Kenyan is a water safety officer for FundiFix, a tiny rural water supply service company. She is one of 20 staff who manage 130 pumps, plus pipes and water tanks that serve 82,000 people across a 1,000 square-mile service area in Kitui and Kwale counties.
Musenya’s task is to assess levels of bacteria in water samples drawn from hand and solar-powered pumps. “Managers of the water users have limited knowledge about the water quality,” she says in a video produced by FundiFix. “We explain to them the water has contamination from